Some unnamed story that I am writing. *Wall of text*
6 replies, posted
This is a personal project I am doing during school hours when I have spare time. (You would not believe how opportune 'spare time' is for me)
This work is free to share but as long as you link the creation came from this forum - specifically, me. [sp]Not that you will, it's too unimportant and not good.[/sp]
Let me know what you think of the story. Does it make you want to continue reading?
A young girl lies on her bed, in her room, in her parent’s home, in her neighbourhood, in her hometown. The world is a quiet, peaceful place as she sleeps. The bluntly pink coloured room is a sweet dark with a tint of blue from the glowing moon. The front lawn smells ripe of dew and ice. The dogs have gone to ease their barking at sirens or otherwise, nothing at all. The morning fog is settling over the town. Life is how it should be…at least, you would hope. The problem in this scenario is that this young girl is not sleeping in her room which is in her parent’s home that is in their neighbourhood in her hometown. This is simply her dream, to go home.
The morning begins as usual. The alarm buzzes the girl’s ear. 7:30AM is what the clock says but what she does not know is that her mother wound the clock back an hour since today was a special day for her family. The girl’s parents are already up and about, you can hear them walking through the house in their loud, thick, fancy shoes. Something you would expect at a wedding.
“Come on, wake up, Albury.” A feminine voice shouts throughout the house. Albury moans to herself and rolls out of bed, unaware she is right next to the edge of the bed, she rolls onto the floor. A loud ‘EEK’ is heard, followed with a thud. Someone walks into the room and Albury is blinded by the sudden flash of light. She winches her eyes and looks at the face staring down at her, trying not to laugh. It’s her father, looking down at her through his small reading glasses and smiling with his poorly trimmed goatee. I wonder why he is wearing his reading glasses? Is he trying to read the situation here? Albury thinks to herself. She shrugs it off and slowly climbs to her feet, her father helping her up.
“Come on, Allie. Today is our big day.” Tom says to Albury. His voice is somewhat like a young boy on his birthday, full of excitement and hyperactivity but also with hints of sorrow. Tom is the optimist of the family so it was strange for Albury to hear the remnants of sadness in his voice. In the background, Albury’s mother can be heard in the kitchen, her high heels making clit-clat sounds with the wooden floor.
“I told you not to call me Allie, dad.” Albury grumbles.
“Sorry, Allie, it’s just so cute!”
They walk out and split up, Albury walking into the kitchen to make herself breakfast and Tom, turning to the bathroom to finish trimming and attempt to put on his tie a hundredth time.
“What’s happening today, again..?” Albury asks her mother as she brushes past her to grab milk from the fridge.
“Don’t you remember? It’s Uncle George’s funeral, Aunty Stell’s birthday and Cousin Fred’s pet goldfishes funeral.” Her voice changing from very bleak to cheerful then back to bleak. Albury feels somewhat guilty so she continues making her breakfast.
“Uncle G always was the fun guy…I’ll miss him and his friend’s jokes...” Albury says to herself in regret, she never got to say goodbye. No one did.
Uncle George was the fun factor of the family for two reasons: He always made horrible jokes but we couldn’t help but laugh at how bad they were and his Australian friend from the city. He would always say to Uncle G when they meet, “Sup ma nigga G?” Even though George was white, his friend was aboriginal so apparently where he’s from its ok to say that. I never really got the joke but it always made me smile when he said it. Uncle G would reply, “Nothing much, cuz, just chilling.”
As to how he died, he and his friend were looking for a crocodile and as you can imagine, that was not a bright idea. Not that the crocodile killed him but the fact that Uncle G could not steer the boat and crashed it into a tree that happened to be full of poisonous insects.
The next hour, Albury and her mother do their morning girl talk while Tom feeds the dogs and continues fiddling with his tie. Albury walks past the bathroom and sees her father almost ready to burn the tie in his hands. She walks up next to her dad and says, “Let me do it, you goof.” And she undoes the tie and puts it back on in a correct manner.
It’s 8:10AM, the clock says. Albury puts the bobby pins in her black, silky hair, her bag on her back, gives her parents a peck on the cheek and as she walks out the door she hears her mother say, “Have fun at school! We’ll pick you up at twelve thirty!”.
As per-usual, it takes fifteen minutes for Albury to walk to school. If she’ s running late, she would take the short cut which trimmed five minutes off her walk. She shuffles her playlist on her Ipod and is satisfied with the songs that were selected at random. None of her friends live in her general area so Albury walks to school by herself and uses this time to think about the future, or what could happen today. The sun’s warmth keeps Albury’s spirits up but the overcast that is forming slowly makes Albury question her mood as well as the forecast for the day. The gum bush trees behind the fence weave through the wind, almost waving to her. The scent of gum leaves fills her and she feels good about the day ahead of her, despite the affairs.
As she predicted, not even an hour since her prediction, it began to rain. She sat by the window as water fell from the sky and washed away into the storm drains. Albury’s friends sit next to her and discuss their shopping spree this afternoon while she stares outside into yonder, watching the rain and letting time pass.
“Albury, are you paying attention?” The teacher calls out. Some people turn and look at Albury as she jumps from hearing her name being yelled across the room. Her friends have stopped chatting and all focused their attention on her, awaiting for some kind of response.
“Yes sir, I was just –“
“Just day dreaming. Recess detention for you, Albury.”
Albury rolls her eyes and groans. She looks at her early leavers slip which indicates she can leave at 12:30 which is half-way through lunch. Some people snicker at her for getting the detention and the teacher continues teaching the class. Not only does the he speak slow in a deep voice as if he is intentionally trying to put us all to sleep, the room is dull. The desks are something from a 1960s classroom, the floor is a dark lipstick-like red and the brick walls are a pure white with some of its paint scrapped off.
After class, Albury sits at her desk and her teacher tells her to “Write down ‘I will not day-dream in class.’” Twenty-five times. As she sits there by herself, writing, the lights overhead flicker rapidly and return to normal. She pauses for a moment to look up but they are fine so she shrugs it off and continues writing. The lights flicker once again and the front row lights shut off. Albury stops writing and looks up. The six remaining lights are non-stop flickering at this point. Next, the middle row lights shut off and Albury gets off her seat and stands up, slowly backing to the wall. The last three lights above her flicker faster and faster, to the point where they look like they aren’t flickering at all. They turn off and the room is dark. The only light is coming out of the window which is a dark, eerie light from the sun barely making it through the storm clouds. The rain stops hitting the window but it appears as though time itself has stopped. Rain droplets outside are paused in mid-flight, the clouds have paused their slow movement across the sky. The wind has stopped blowing. Albury looks outside to witness the unorthodox event develop but gets chills down her spine as she hears a thud on the other side of the room hit a desk. She turns her head slowly but sees nothing but there is something hitting the desk. Albury feels something stuck in her throat, is it fear? She gulps silently, swallowing whatever feeling she is experiencing. Step by step, she approaches the banging sound but with each step, it is harder for her to resist this strange feeling.
The banging got louder with each step taken by Albury and by the time she was right in front of the table, it sounded like a rifle being fired in her ear. She reaches for the table and lifts it slowly; there is a book there, a diary, maybe. The moment she touches the book, the lights flicker back on, the rain continues to wash up on the window, the wind continues blowing through the trees and the clouds continue moving along. Albury pulls her hand back as everything returns to normal, momentarily shocked but extends her hand again to grab the book.
The book itself has a hard leather casing with a special belt strapped around it. It requires some kind of key to open but there is no key in the desk. As she tries to rip the lock off, the bell goes off and she jumps once again, this time from fright.
The rest of the day goes by as usual, the students play around the school cheerfully, her friends are all huddled together discussing about their favourite movies. Albury tries keeping her mind off the book-incident and throws her favourite movie in for consideration, the ‘The Illusionist’. Albury always loves a good mystery thriller with a huge twist in it.
Period two goes by as usual, her favourite subject, Music, she is not interested in the work as much as actually playing the piano. She begins to practice her song for the end-of-year concert which was from a movie. ‘Up Is Down’ which was composed by a famous conductor called Hans Zimmer. As she played, the some students took off their headsets and listened in astonishment. Albury always practices where there are no prying eyes but she always enjoys showing off which is what she was doing right now.
During lunch, Albury gets antsy and continuously checks the time. She waits impatiently for her 12:30 marker to leave school.
“Finally…sorry girls but I have to go.” Albury says in a sigh of relief.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be with youse or anything, it’s just a drag sitting around and doing nothing.” She continues as she walks away, the other girls nod, trying to hide their envy.
Albury sits in the car parking lot as she waits for her parents to pick her up. They’re late… Albury thinks to herself as she looks at her phone. 12:40PM it says.
Tom and Albury sit in the car in silence. Tom, feeling guilty of being twenty minutes late and Albury, still wondering about the book.
“Your mother wants you to dress into your funeral dress before we leave.” Tom says. When they arrive home, she waves to her mother who doesn’t take notice of her since she’s busy preparing a special dinner that takes a very long time to roast. Albury walks into her bedroom, chucks her bag onto the bed and walks around the house, searching for her funeral dress. For about five minutes, she looks and eventually finds it hanging in the laundry, covering in plastic wrapping. Gently, Albury grabs the dress and walks to the bathroom to change.
Tom sits in the car, waiting for the girls to fix up. The car itself is a black Mitsubishi, 2010 version. Brand new, almost. Tom is always the first to be ready which is why he drives the family everywhere. He waits on the girls in the car for over half an hour most of the time, tuning into the radio and sometimes even calling up when they give questions to the public.
This one time, the radio asked, “What’s the most embarrassing thing you have done? Give us a ring and tell us if you have the courage!” They ask strange questions like this because they someone go off-track and one of the radio speakers asks the other the question, they answer, then ask the audience to ring up so, Tom rang them.
“G’day, Jackie and Kyle.” Tom would say into the phone. (With the radio off, of course)
“Hey Tom! So what was your most embarrassing experience?” They replied.
“Well, back when I was at school, I had a crush on this girl. I was naïve at the time so I took anyone’s advice…”
“Oh, lord. I can tell where this is going…” Tom could almost imagine Jackie face palming herself.
“Someone told me to get some flowers for this girl and shout out to the whole school that I love this girl.” He said, chuckling throughout the sentence.
“Ha, ha, ha! And you did it? Fair dinkum, you were naïve back then!” Kyle roared into the microphone, laughing his head off.
“Uh, yeah. I was pretty dumb back then but hey, it got me the girl and we dated for about a month and I dumped her for cheating.”
There was a mixture of laughter and sympathy from the radio talk host but in the end, Tom won one hundred dollars for having the best story.
Albury and her mother walk out onto the veranda and into the car. Albury with her hair tied back into a small pony tail and her mother with a large hat. Tom looks at her with an eyebrow raised and chuckles.
“Nice hat, does it come in human size?”
Her eyebrows frown at Tom and she scowls him behind her sunglasses.
“Let’s just go.” She replies, impatiently. Albury cannot help but giggle at Tom’s joke.
At the funeral, it is quiet and the atmosphere is full of sadness. Albury wants to get out of there as quick as she came in. She sees relatives and family friends, some people she has never met before but figures they knew Uncle George. The priest calls everyone to the main chamber to sit. It is where George’s coffin lays peacefully, surrounded by candles, pictures and the British flag hanging from a small flag mobile flag post.
Albury looks at all the people in front of her and sees some people in tears, some with their heads down and others trying comforting the person next to them. Whenever she looks at the coffin itself, she feels a bit like crying herself. When she turns to her parents, her mother’s head is on Tom’s shoulder and she’s crying. Tom holds her close and that was the breaking point for Albury. She sits to the other side of her father and holds him. Tom himself does not cry but has his head down.
The relationship between Tom and George were anything but friendly. They had a mutual dislike towards one another. George was an out-going kind of guy who hated apathy. Tom was an office worker who lazed about all day and hated people who looked down at him. Since they were family, the disliking remained mutual.
“It’s you…hi.”
“Eh…g’day…”
That’s as interactive as they got.
The priest stands on behind the speaker and taps microphone softly, twice.
“Good afternoon. We are here today to mourn the loss of a great man. He was a friend, a husband, a father and good man to many of us. Here lies George Trewn, a man who overcame the most feared obstacles but alas, could not live to tell his last tale. If anyone here today wishes to say last words to George’s spirit, or words of comfort to the audience, please come forth.”
Albury looks around and nobody moves. The priest steps back to the speaker and moves his hands as the sign of the cross.
“Let us bow us heads for a moment and wish George the best in the afterlife. Amen.” He says, holding his head down.
“Amen.” Everyone in the room repeats, all putting their heads down.
For that whole minute, the room was silent. So silent, Albury could actually hear the air conditioner all the way at the front blowing in cold air. The only thing in her mind was getting out of this funeral; she did not want to be sad on such a great day.
“You may rise. Family and close friends may have a final word with George” and with those last words, the priest stands next to the head of the coffin, greeting everyone who walks up to the coffin and finds different ways to apologize for his death, despite him not being the cause of it. Albury felt like this was her time to say goodbye so she waits for everyone already lined up to say their part, then she would say her goodbye.
Ten minutes, she sits and watches the line decline until no one was there. Albury walks up to the coffin and looks down at Uncle George, shedding a tear.
“I guess you are Albury.” The priest says.
“Yes, I am.” She says, not taking her eyes off George’s peaceful smile as he lay in the coffin.
“George spoke highly of you – his spirit, that is.” The priest says, giving an honest, comforting smile.
Albury’s eyes widen and her jaw drops slightly and she looks up at the priest.
“Is…this some kind of joke to you?” She says, disgusted by the priest. His smile turns somewhat into a frown of confusion.
“Pardon…?”
“He’s dead and all you can do is talk about his spirit. It’s not making anything better, telling us he’s still here. For shame.” She says to the priest, infuriated and sad at the same time. She walks off in a stride of fury. Some people notice her sudden change of mood and even her face says it all; a dark pink. Some people turn and scowl at the priest as Albury storms out of the chapel.
Albury sits on the front steps, sulking about George’s passing; her mother walks out with Tom.
“Come on, sweetie. One more funeral then we can have a break and cheer up for Aunty Stell’s party.” Albury’s mother says, rubbing her back softly and slowly.
“I’ll start the car up.” Tom says weakly. Albury holds her mother tightly and continues sulking.
“I miss George, mum."
Another funeral…great, at least it’s about a fish no one cares about. Albury thinks to herself. Everyone stands around the small hole with the headstone saying ‘HERE LIES FREDDIE. “HE SWAM FAST AND DIED YOUNG.” RIP 7/5/11’ Albury couldn’t help but smirk at the quote that Fred wanted engraved. She pat Fred on the shoulder and tell him, “It’s a great quote from a great guy.” And he smiles meekly.
The family drive to McDonalds and get a family meal before going home in hopes to cheer up a little. It doesn’t work until Tom starts talking.
“While you two were talking on the steps, I was listening to the radio. Funniest story out: This guy was cheating on his wife – that’s not the funny part. Anyway, this guy’s cheating on his wife and he sets up a date with both girls, one after the other. Here’s the twist: The girls are friends and the girl that is having the affair is unaware her friend is married to her. She tells her friend she’s on a date and the bloke’s wife says, “I’m going on a date with my husband.” And the other girl says, “Nice, I’m having a date with a guy called Larry Jake. Larry’s wife’s smile drops suddenly and she stares right at her friend, grabs her coffee and chucks it in her face.” With that last part, the family laugh but only momentarily, then Tom’s wife says how it was mean to laugh and Tom gives a bit of a huff mixed with a chuckle.
It is now 4:04PM and Albury’s family is home, everyone wearing casual clothes, TV with a recorded football game playing, Albury listening to her music in her room, on her bed and her mother in the kitchen, sorting out some party food for later tonight.
I wonder what’s inside that book…Albury wonders to herself as she listens to her heavy metal through her ear plugs. Eventually, she gets up and searches through her bag and pulls the large leather-cased book out and examines it further. That wasn’t there before…Albury notes to herself as she notices the book cover has writing on it. It’s in some foreign language which makes it impossible to read. With all the dust, it helps with the impossible part. Albury blows the dust off and suddenly the book covering begins to shift around and the text translates itself into English. ‘The chronicles of the Weaver’ is what the cover translates. The chronicles of the Weaver…huh, what a weird name. I’ll find a way to open this thing up and see what’s inside. The key lock makes Albury suggest something about the book is secret for a reason.
The party is great. No one is sulking or lowering their heads down, or mourning the dead. Everyone is enjoying themselves and there’s confetti everywhere. Aunty Stell is in the lounge room with a shining, coned party hat on her head, dancing to ABBA with some other people her age. Other people are talking in the sunroom and the kids are in the backyard, playing around. Albury is standing around with a drink in her hand, watching the party progress. This is how today should have gone. Albury thinks to herself, smiling away at everyone walking past her. For a minute or two, Albury decides to dance with her Aunty or to sit back and watch. She puts the cup down and charges for the dance floor, grabbing Stell’s hand and begins to follow her moves. They were the perfect couple for such a dance. 100% unrehearsed and completely nuts, everyone was having a great time.
At the end of the party, the cake came along. It was a big cake, like a fancy wedding cake but this one did go any higher than a second piece and didn’t have the bride or groom on top. The chanting was the most favourable part. No one ever gets the lyrics right since we all have our own separate versions. My family sang the traditional ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you’ and my father’s family would sing the ‘happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo’ version and one of Stell’s friends would sing in random high and low notes. Overall, it sounded like a horde of zombies moaning a strange chant. We all laugh when we get up to ‘happy birthday, dear stell’ since we all call her different names. Those who continued the chant instead of laughing would finish with ‘happy birthday to you!” emphasising on the ‘you’.
On the ride home, Albury and her parents all stuffed with cake and she feels like she could fall asleep and never wake up. When they arrive home and walk into the house, Albury notices something straight away. The book she found in the desk at school made its way to the coffee table. On top of it is a key. The moon’s shine glimmers on the key which makes it look like an aurora is around it. Albury walks to the book and picks it up, along with the key and walks into her room.
“I’m heading to bed, night guys.” Albury notifies her parents as she waves momentarily and walks out of sight, into her room, closing her door.
Looking at the key, which looks like something out of a poorly drawn cartoon, a gold colour and two small, fat, rectangular teeth for the keyhole, Albury wedges the key into the book and she hears two soft clicks. Followed by those clicks, she turns the key which makes the lock turn into dust. She slowly opens the book and for a moment, finds it hard to read since it’s translating from its writing into English writing. It takes a few minutes but eventually translates.
The next day, Albury hears the alarm buzz and repeats what happened the following morning. This time, however, she didn’t fall out of bed. She didn’t hear her parents walking around the house or her mother telling her to wake up. It was silence. Albury gets dressed for school and as she walks out the door, she looks at the sky, noticing how dark it is today. Maybe I should take an umbrella…she thinks to herself so she walks back in to fetch an umbrella. When Albury walks back out, a bright light flashes before her and with each flash, her surroundings change environment. She sees glimpses of alien places and impossible geometry. Finally, after several flashes, it stops and Albury collapses, unconscious.
Albury opens her eyes and looks up at the sky as she lays on the ground, stiff. The sky looks…strange. It’s all green with what appears to be lightning bolts frozen in the sky but they are not separate from the sky itself, the green is dotted with small stars and it’s dark so Albury figures it’s night. She sits up and looks around, noticing the landscape has also change. How long was I out? Where am I? The only two questions racing through her mind right now. The landscape reflects the sky’s greenish tinge and smells like a grass field but there’s no grass. She gets to her feet and looks around, only seeing this vast and empty field. There is a large pond ahead of her so she walks towards it and kicks the water. To her surprise, the water does not ripple. The laws of physics don’t work here…where am I? Am I dreaming? Another question to fill her head. She closes her eyes and spins on the spot till she gets dizzy and stops spinning. She looks out towards a mountain in the distance. I shall walk this way.
I will update the story once a day. (School holidays begin tomorrow so I won't touch it for two solid weeks)
I read a random sentence and it was a line from Amnesia. What the fuck?
Really, where?
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;32424477]I read a random sentence and it was a line from Amnesia. What the fuck?[/QUOTE]
Oh my god, please point that out :D
I haven't actually finished the game yet ...
The sentence structure and grammar are a bit wonky, but in general it's a fine story, just needs to be refined and polished to become better.
IE:
[quote]A young girl lies on her bed, in her room, in her parent’s home, in her neighbourhood, in her hometown. The world is a quiet, peaceful place as she sleeps. The bluntly pink coloured room is a sweet dark with a tint of blue from the glowing moon. The front lawn smells ripe of dew and ice. The dogs have gone to ease their barking at sirens or otherwise, nothing at all.[/quote]
I'd say a bit tweaking, such as:
[quote]A young girl lies on her bed, the world around her is quiet and peaceful while she lies in sleep. The bluntly pink coloured room is sweet and dark with light from glowing moon illuminating it in its rays. The front lawn smelling ripe of dew and ice, the dogs at ease from howling at the distant sirens. Everything remains at silence in the early morning.[/quote]
Just a bit of fixing, and it'll be quite a piece to read.
[QUOTE=Nyaa;32427282]Oh my god, please point that out :D
I haven't actually finished the game yet ...[/QUOTE]
The impossible geometry bit.. I remember that exact phrase from one of Daniel's memoirs
I haven't finished either, started juggling games and didn't see any of them through to the end, then made a clean break to 100% the Crash Bandicoot series. Not to mention I only played Amnesia in short bursts ;o
Where are you in it?
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;32438299]The impossible geometry bit.. I remember that exact phrase from one of Daniel's memoirs
I haven't finished either, started juggling games and didn't see any of them through to the end, then made a clean break to 100% the Crash Bandicoot series. Not to mention I only played Amnesia in short bursts ;o
Where are you in it?[/QUOTE]
Must be a coincidence, I do not remember much from Amnesia.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.